10 ms·

Might be a good time to enable E2EE on your Ring cams if you haven’t already: https://ring.com/support/articles/7e3lk/using-video-end-to-end-encryption-e2ee ht

Might be a good time to enable E2EE on your Ring cams if you haven’t already: https://ring.com/support/articles/7e3lk/using-video-end-to-end-encryption-e2ee https://ring.com/support/articles/7e3lk/using-video-end-to-e...

VoodooJuJu 1y ago
[dead]
kotaKat 1y ago
Bad news: Ring just enabled opt-in-by-default "search parties" for people to leverage your outdoor cameras to find their "lost animals". https://ring.com/search-party https://ring.com/search-party
- taneq 1y ago
  “Opt-in-by-default” is a lot of words to say “opt-out”.
  - jappgar 1y ago
    You opted-in by buying the product in the first place. People are buying these things out of fear anyways. I thought they'd be happy big brother is watching.
    - nrjames 1y ago
      When a man murdered a woman in front of my house last year, our Ring camera's photos of his car led to his arrest within 24 hours, so not entirely useless?
      - arlcode 1y ago
        It's all trade offs. Even in the most dystopian sci-fi future where a hostile and totalitarian government watches everything everybody does, they would still use the information to investigate boring everyday crimes. The (non rethoric) question is, are people willing to pay the increasing price of non-crime related surveillance as we see diminished security margins.
      - nativeit 1y ago
        I heard there could be zero crime soon, once they start “pre-registration” and open up the death camps for everyone Grok says is a baddy. So useful!
      - matthewdgreen 1y ago
        I’m ok with that as long as I, the camera owner, am choosing to hand over the footage. At best I can see some sort of watermarking to ensure that it’s legitimate.
        nrjames 1y ago
        There are legitimate reasons to want a camera either at your front door or surveilling your property. These can range from an increased sense of security to having documentation to support insurance claims, or even for watching wildlife. We installed our Ring camera after an ongoing string of nighttime car break-ins hit us and we had no direct proof of what happened for insurance. It was meant to be both a deterrent to that type of event and also for documentation if it happened again. There's also a pack of coyotes that lives in the woods near our house and occasionally eats our chickens. While that usage was more out of curiosity (if you have chickens, you're going to lose one from time to time), we were able to develop a sense of when that threat was higher. I live on a bucolic cul-de-sac in a house that I've lived in since the mid 1970s. Most of the neighbors are the same. I never in my life expected a random person to drive down the street, drag a lady out of his trunk, chase her around the cul-de-sac, and stab her to death in front of my house. I never expected to find the body in the woods 40' from my side door. This is when I also learned that nobody comes to clean up after a crime like that and that if I didn't want pools of blood in front of my house and a 50' streak of it crossing the circle or the splatters all over the mailboxes that I was going to have to go out there and clean it up myself. I was in PTSD therapy for a while after that. I'm glad the Ring camera caught some of the activity. After an event like that, it's easy to lose a sense of security in your home. How are you supposed to sleep the night after that happens, when the perpetrator remains at large? You can't lock your doors hard enough or do anything at all to feel secure. That lack of sense of security does not go away in a day or a week or a month. It goes away when you can find "normal" again. It helped us to find normal by installing other cameras around the house. I don't want Ring or Arlo or anybody to be automatically sharing my camera footage with anybody. Even with the murder event, it was my choice to go through the footage and share it with the authorities. I don't support authoritarian "law enforcement" activities, I don't want anybody tapping into my camera feed to find lost pets or for any other reason. They shouldn't be allowed to do it. Like many other services we all use, we're more of the product than the customer, as our data is harvested and used for other purposes. Personal security is different than targeted advertising. Most people won't know they need or want a camera until after they have experienced something that makes them feel less secure in their home. I just hope they have the wits to read the Terms and understand what they're opting into before automatically accepting all of the opt-in-by-default data sharing.
      - somenameforme 1y ago
        I think a good thought experiment to consider, in terms of defining what your own views are, is to consider that if every single person had a mandatory 24/7 uplinked camera on them with redundancies, then the number of unsolved crimes would rapidly approach zero. It would be essentially impossible to get away with crime, so the only crimes that would happen would be those of passion, ignorance, or the political elite who would certainly excuse themselves from such social obligations, as usual. But I definitely would not want to live in that world. And I think that's true for most people. It's kind of interesting too because there's some really nasty arguments one can make about this like, 'What, you'd rather see children kidnapped and even killed than consenting to surveillance that won't even be looked at unless you're under suspicion?' But it's quite disingenuous, because with any freedom there is always a cost, and that cost is often extreme. 40,000+ people die per year because of our freedom to drive, yet few would ever use that as an argument to prohibit driving.
        plasticchris 1y ago
        The trouble is, there would also be no unsolved thought crimes
        neuralRiot 1y ago
        Another problem is that “crime” is a very flexible term and when you have a hammer everything looks like a nail. Also the legal system specially in the US likes to equate convictions with solved cases which is not always the same.
        red-iron-pine 1y ago
        > 40,000+ people die per year because of our freedom to drive, yet few would ever use that as an argument to prohibit driving. that is a fantastic argument to force reduced driving and shows up in virtually all discussions about car safety and public transit.
        charcircuit 1y ago
        >And I think that's true for most people. I think it's the opposite. I think people would prefer the peace of mind of living in a high trust society. People like predictability and being able to trust people. I also think people would enjoy that laws that people pass are actually applied and we can efficiently apply the will of the people to the country. >with any freedom there is always a cost Laws ultimately would be what restrict your freedom, not the enforcement of them. I don't think freedom should rely on poor enforcement of laws.
      - reaperducer 1y ago
        When a man murdered a woman in front of my house last year, our Ring camera's photos of his car led to his arrest within 24 hours, so not entirely useless? Your doorbell photo of a car was really the only evidence to convict someone of murder? I'm glad I live somewhere that needs more proof that.
        nrjames 1y ago
        No, it enabled them to find him quickly. There was other evidence, but with no previously know connection to the victim and the perpetrator having no prior criminal record, I was told it was unlikely they would have found him otherwise.
    - ongy 1y ago
      Why do you think it's fear? The owners I know consider it a convenience device.
      - jeromegv 1y ago
        Convenience for? Security? Isn’t increased security measures based on fear?
        morshu9001 1y ago
        Just knowing when stuff happens outside your house when you're not home. Like, someone in the household came back from work, a package arrived, or a cool animal showed up. Or you're home and appreciate a little more notice before a visitor rings the doorbell. Personally not a compelling enough reason to buy the camera in the first place, but those non crime notifications end up being the most common once it's up.
        ongy 1y ago
        Or having a quick chat with the delivery guy/neighbour while remote.
        ongy 1y ago
        Who said anything about security? They are toys
    - Ancapistani 1y ago
      I bought a Ring doorbell several years ago, because I wanted an app-connected doorbell camera. That's it. Once Amazon started rolling out other stuff and it was clear they were setting up a private panopticon, I trashed it and went with Blink, adding five wireless cameras as well. Blink isn't much better, but they're not as broadly compatible and don't have as many bells and whistles yet - but they're getting there. The next step is to roll my own stuff. I expect I'll have that done by the end of the year. I'll also note that none of my Blink cameras are pointing outward from my home. The closest to that is that I have one mounted on the front corner eave, but I made sure to point it so that it's looking at where I park my vehicles, and turned off motion detection for the small area of the street that it can see. What I don't understand is that most of the ones I've seen others install are mounted under the eaves of the house, pointing outward. What's the purpose of that? They're not going to capture anyone actually trying to mess with your property. Most of mine are mounted in trees (front yard) or on posts that I installed for that purpose (back yard).
  - rkomorn 1y ago
    I agree it's the same as "opt-out" but I like the phrase "opt-in by default" because it implies there's an affirmative "I want to participate in this" option somewhere, and that it is set to "yes" by default. IMO it properly reflects that what looks like an active affirmative choice by the user is actually not.
  - IT4MD 1y ago
    However, it's a very abbreviated way of stating, "soon you will not even be given this choice, because we make entirely too much money selling your data/info and we kinda bribe law enforcement by granting them any and all video, with a simple request"
- ceejayoz 1y ago
  “Do it for the lost puppies!” is darkly comedic as a way to ease people into the idea.
- mihaaly 1y ago
  Oh, Jesus!! This f shameless pretention of doing something noble - barely helpful above normal practices btw. - while manipulating clueless users into turning on mass-surveillance is revolting and disgusting. And ordinary employees figured this out, phrased, created content, implemmented, pubished, and are maintaining this dirty practice. Many times with (very misplaced) pride. Shame on all of them actively participating in this coward scheme!
  - jappgar 1y ago
    Shame on the idiots who place a webcam on their front doorstep too.
    - nick__m 1y ago
      Someone tried to enter by the window next to my front porch door, it prompted me to install a video doorbell because the dude that frightened my wife only received a ticket because there was no proof he tried (and fail) to force open a window and did not enter the house. If I had a recording he would have spent the night at the station and it would have been a criminal offense instead of a civil one. Even if it only provides deterrence, and a slight chance of after the fact punishment, I don't feel idiotic for buying a "doorstep Webcam", the door is visible from the street so there is no expectation of privacy and I really don't care that someone else could access those recordings. If I had indoors cameras they would be in a private network. But for a front porch camera the easiest to install IOT junk is perfectly serviceable.
      - coredog64 1y ago
        This. Local youths started playing ding-dong-ditch last summer. It was harmless when it was 8-9pm on a Friday or Saturday. They escalated to banging on windows, then to doing it at 1am, and finally to damaging our garage door to the point it won't open. My wife is extremely upset about all of this, and I'm not going to be bullied out of the opinion that 24/7 cameras are actually a good thing.
        1y ago
- captainkrtek 1y ago
  The feature in the app is also worded cleverly: “Search party lets you use your outdoor Ring cameras to help neighbors in your area” Note: doesn’t mention pets yet. Then: “Starting with lost pets, Search party will…” What comes after lost pets? Very open ended
  - lazystar 1y ago
    > What comes after lost pets? Very open ended endangered animal conservation groups looking for rare birds
- treyd 1y ago
  I love how evil the concept of "opt-in-by-default" is. It's so rapey and sinister.
- somehnguy 1y ago
  Thanks for the heads up, just went in and disabled it on my 2 cameras. Next step will be to throw these privacy invading pieces of junk in the trash. Just need to find a comparable product. Are there any wireless (running power to these locations is not an option) doorbell cams that record to local storage instead of the cloud? I refuse to pay a subscription for these things. Ideally they would record to my server instead of onboard SD card so that the footage can't just walk away if someone grabs the camera.
  - absoflutely 1y ago
    Reolink has some good options in this area. Both wired and wireless security and doorbell cameras with microSD storage by default, but FTP and SFTP can also be used. I've been happy with my (wired) doorbell camera with just a microSD card.
nerdponx 1y ago
Consider not sending your doorbell footage to accompany that has no respect for user privacy, and is now actively partnering with a police surveillance company.
- cholantesh 1y ago
  Yeah there are plenty of self-hosted solutions that work just as well.
  - nik282000 1y ago
    And it's cheap! If you want JUST cameras it's pennies a day, I'm running a 2010 gaming PC with a dozen services (which would cost >200 bucks from the usual suspects) and it's still only 20 bucks a month.
  - WarOnPrivacy 1y ago
    Blue Iris is a fairly amazing camera hosting solution. I am continually impressed with the quality of the code and feature set. (disclaimer: $80/yr but we actually pay a bit less).
- lcnPylGDnU4H9OF 1y ago
  > now actively partnering with a police surveillance company You can make this point stronger: Amazon is a police surveillance company (with Ring), just not primarily.
ta1243 1y ago
The best time to not buy into all this non-free surveilence-as-a-service crap was a decade ago. The second best time is today. Unfortunately the public love this stuff, and are quite happy to have CCTV pointing at your house. Privacy never existed 300 years ago, it doesn't today. Accept your feudal masters and make peace with it, because they won years ago.
comboy 1y ago
Just keep your cameras on separate vlan and access through eg. wireguard. Any company can have the best intentions but gov can just come to them, tell them to implement whatever is needed - even if that means lying to their users - and have access to everything. Probably even with plausible deniability for all parties involved, but not sure anyone even still cares about that.
andrepd 1y ago
Is this seriously your conclusion? Might be a good time to get rid of the fucking spy camera owned by a multitrillion dollar corporation partnering with the state surveillance apparatus, is my opinion. Have people never read/watched a sci-fi book/film before?
- bryancoxwell 1y ago
  I think encouraging people to enable E2EE is more realistic than asking everyone to throw out the Ring cams they’ve potentially spent hundreds on, yeah.
  - andrepd 1y ago
    Why people would purchase a telescreen to place on their homes in the first place is also incomprehensible to me.
    - ta1243 1y ago
      I can see benefits to a closed circuit camera. I've never felt the need personally. If it's not running free software and treated in a secure fashion (camera can't talk to anything other than the server, enforced at the network level, etc) then it's not a risk per-se. However people would rather pay up front and pay subscriptions to get outside companies to run it than run their own their own equipment. In the 90s when I was excited about tech I didn't even consider that aspect.
  - danparsonson 1y ago
    But... what makes you think that Amazon et al can't MITM the connection?
    - Aachen 1y ago
      From the linked document (in German for some reason, so I skimmed it as best I could), it sounds like the device will generate a password and you need to enter it on your phone. So symmetric encryption, not trusting the server to distribute keys that would be susceptible to MITM, and also not leaving users the options to choose bad passwords Sounds good from a security point of view, although it also says they disable functions like having more than one person able to view the camera (having a partner be able to answer the door seems pretty fundamental; they probably just can't be arsed to make such functionality work with safety turned on...) Of course, just like with Signal or anything else that gets regular updates, they can push an update to your device specifically that sends the decryption key out. You'll always have to trust them to not do something like that, but that's a whole different level from subpoenaing data they have on a hard drive
drdaeman 1y ago
Is Ring camera encryption actually independently audited and known to be implemented correctly and provide all the desirable security properties? Because when I reverse engineered my Tuya-based camera-equipped pet feeder, I've discovered that there was an encryption on the video stream, but they only encrypted I-frames and left P-frames unencrypted. Amazon is not Tuya, but IoT is IoT. My point is, there are myriad of ways IoT vendor can boast "encryption" and "security" on the marketing materials, while the actual implementation could be flawed beyond redemption.
croes 11mo ago
Does that prevent something like a Flock mode that sends the data directly to them?

VoodooJuJu 1y ago

[dead]

kotaKat 1y ago

Bad news: Ring just enabled opt-in-by-default "search parties" for people to leverage your outdoor cameras to find their "lost animals". https://ring.com/search-party https://ring.com/search-party

taneq 1y ago
“Opt-in-by-default” is a lot of words to say “opt-out”.
- jappgar 1y ago
  You opted-in by buying the product in the first place. People are buying these things out of fear anyways. I thought they'd be happy big brother is watching.
  - nrjames 1y ago
    When a man murdered a woman in front of my house last year, our Ring camera's photos of his car led to his arrest within 24 hours, so not entirely useless?
    - arlcode 1y ago
      It's all trade offs. Even in the most dystopian sci-fi future where a hostile and totalitarian government watches everything everybody does, they would still use the information to investigate boring everyday crimes. The (non rethoric) question is, are people willing to pay the increasing price of non-crime related surveillance as we see diminished security margins.
    - nativeit 1y ago
      I heard there could be zero crime soon, once they start “pre-registration” and open up the death camps for everyone Grok says is a baddy. So useful!
    - matthewdgreen 1y ago
      I’m ok with that as long as I, the camera owner, am choosing to hand over the footage. At best I can see some sort of watermarking to ensure that it’s legitimate.
      - nrjames 1y ago
        There are legitimate reasons to want a camera either at your front door or surveilling your property. These can range from an increased sense of security to having documentation to support insurance claims, or even for watching wildlife. We installed our Ring camera after an ongoing string of nighttime car break-ins hit us and we had no direct proof of what happened for insurance. It was meant to be both a deterrent to that type of event and also for documentation if it happened again. There's also a pack of coyotes that lives in the woods near our house and occasionally eats our chickens. While that usage was more out of curiosity (if you have chickens, you're going to lose one from time to time), we were able to develop a sense of when that threat was higher. I live on a bucolic cul-de-sac in a house that I've lived in since the mid 1970s. Most of the neighbors are the same. I never in my life expected a random person to drive down the street, drag a lady out of his trunk, chase her around the cul-de-sac, and stab her to death in front of my house. I never expected to find the body in the woods 40' from my side door. This is when I also learned that nobody comes to clean up after a crime like that and that if I didn't want pools of blood in front of my house and a 50' streak of it crossing the circle or the splatters all over the mailboxes that I was going to have to go out there and clean it up myself. I was in PTSD therapy for a while after that. I'm glad the Ring camera caught some of the activity. After an event like that, it's easy to lose a sense of security in your home. How are you supposed to sleep the night after that happens, when the perpetrator remains at large? You can't lock your doors hard enough or do anything at all to feel secure. That lack of sense of security does not go away in a day or a week or a month. It goes away when you can find "normal" again. It helped us to find normal by installing other cameras around the house. I don't want Ring or Arlo or anybody to be automatically sharing my camera footage with anybody. Even with the murder event, it was my choice to go through the footage and share it with the authorities. I don't support authoritarian "law enforcement" activities, I don't want anybody tapping into my camera feed to find lost pets or for any other reason. They shouldn't be allowed to do it. Like many other services we all use, we're more of the product than the customer, as our data is harvested and used for other purposes. Personal security is different than targeted advertising. Most people won't know they need or want a camera until after they have experienced something that makes them feel less secure in their home. I just hope they have the wits to read the Terms and understand what they're opting into before automatically accepting all of the opt-in-by-default data sharing.
    - somenameforme 1y ago
      I think a good thought experiment to consider, in terms of defining what your own views are, is to consider that if every single person had a mandatory 24/7 uplinked camera on them with redundancies, then the number of unsolved crimes would rapidly approach zero. It would be essentially impossible to get away with crime, so the only crimes that would happen would be those of passion, ignorance, or the political elite who would certainly excuse themselves from such social obligations, as usual. But I definitely would not want to live in that world. And I think that's true for most people. It's kind of interesting too because there's some really nasty arguments one can make about this like, 'What, you'd rather see children kidnapped and even killed than consenting to surveillance that won't even be looked at unless you're under suspicion?' But it's quite disingenuous, because with any freedom there is always a cost, and that cost is often extreme. 40,000+ people die per year because of our freedom to drive, yet few would ever use that as an argument to prohibit driving.
      - plasticchris 1y ago
        The trouble is, there would also be no unsolved thought crimes
        neuralRiot 1y ago
        Another problem is that “crime” is a very flexible term and when you have a hammer everything looks like a nail. Also the legal system specially in the US likes to equate convictions with solved cases which is not always the same.
      - red-iron-pine 1y ago
        > 40,000+ people die per year because of our freedom to drive, yet few would ever use that as an argument to prohibit driving. that is a fantastic argument to force reduced driving and shows up in virtually all discussions about car safety and public transit.
      - charcircuit 1y ago
        >And I think that's true for most people. I think it's the opposite. I think people would prefer the peace of mind of living in a high trust society. People like predictability and being able to trust people. I also think people would enjoy that laws that people pass are actually applied and we can efficiently apply the will of the people to the country. >with any freedom there is always a cost Laws ultimately would be what restrict your freedom, not the enforcement of them. I don't think freedom should rely on poor enforcement of laws.
    - reaperducer 1y ago
      When a man murdered a woman in front of my house last year, our Ring camera's photos of his car led to his arrest within 24 hours, so not entirely useless? Your doorbell photo of a car was really the only evidence to convict someone of murder? I'm glad I live somewhere that needs more proof that.
      - nrjames 1y ago
        No, it enabled them to find him quickly. There was other evidence, but with no previously know connection to the victim and the perpetrator having no prior criminal record, I was told it was unlikely they would have found him otherwise.
  - ongy 1y ago
    Why do you think it's fear? The owners I know consider it a convenience device.
    - jeromegv 1y ago
      Convenience for? Security? Isn’t increased security measures based on fear?
      - morshu9001 1y ago
        Just knowing when stuff happens outside your house when you're not home. Like, someone in the household came back from work, a package arrived, or a cool animal showed up. Or you're home and appreciate a little more notice before a visitor rings the doorbell. Personally not a compelling enough reason to buy the camera in the first place, but those non crime notifications end up being the most common once it's up.
        ongy 1y ago
        Or having a quick chat with the delivery guy/neighbour while remote.
      - ongy 1y ago
        Who said anything about security? They are toys
  - Ancapistani 1y ago
    I bought a Ring doorbell several years ago, because I wanted an app-connected doorbell camera. That's it. Once Amazon started rolling out other stuff and it was clear they were setting up a private panopticon, I trashed it and went with Blink, adding five wireless cameras as well. Blink isn't much better, but they're not as broadly compatible and don't have as many bells and whistles yet - but they're getting there. The next step is to roll my own stuff. I expect I'll have that done by the end of the year. I'll also note that none of my Blink cameras are pointing outward from my home. The closest to that is that I have one mounted on the front corner eave, but I made sure to point it so that it's looking at where I park my vehicles, and turned off motion detection for the small area of the street that it can see. What I don't understand is that most of the ones I've seen others install are mounted under the eaves of the house, pointing outward. What's the purpose of that? They're not going to capture anyone actually trying to mess with your property. Most of mine are mounted in trees (front yard) or on posts that I installed for that purpose (back yard).
- rkomorn 1y ago
  I agree it's the same as "opt-out" but I like the phrase "opt-in by default" because it implies there's an affirmative "I want to participate in this" option somewhere, and that it is set to "yes" by default. IMO it properly reflects that what looks like an active affirmative choice by the user is actually not.
- IT4MD 1y ago
  However, it's a very abbreviated way of stating, "soon you will not even be given this choice, because we make entirely too much money selling your data/info and we kinda bribe law enforcement by granting them any and all video, with a simple request"
ceejayoz 1y ago
“Do it for the lost puppies!” is darkly comedic as a way to ease people into the idea.
mihaaly 1y ago
Oh, Jesus!! This f shameless pretention of doing something noble - barely helpful above normal practices btw. - while manipulating clueless users into turning on mass-surveillance is revolting and disgusting. And ordinary employees figured this out, phrased, created content, implemmented, pubished, and are maintaining this dirty practice. Many times with (very misplaced) pride. Shame on all of them actively participating in this coward scheme!
- jappgar 1y ago
  Shame on the idiots who place a webcam on their front doorstep too.
  - nick__m 1y ago
    Someone tried to enter by the window next to my front porch door, it prompted me to install a video doorbell because the dude that frightened my wife only received a ticket because there was no proof he tried (and fail) to force open a window and did not enter the house. If I had a recording he would have spent the night at the station and it would have been a criminal offense instead of a civil one. Even if it only provides deterrence, and a slight chance of after the fact punishment, I don't feel idiotic for buying a "doorstep Webcam", the door is visible from the street so there is no expectation of privacy and I really don't care that someone else could access those recordings. If I had indoors cameras they would be in a private network. But for a front porch camera the easiest to install IOT junk is perfectly serviceable.
    - coredog64 1y ago
      This. Local youths started playing ding-dong-ditch last summer. It was harmless when it was 8-9pm on a Friday or Saturday. They escalated to banging on windows, then to doing it at 1am, and finally to damaging our garage door to the point it won't open. My wife is extremely upset about all of this, and I'm not going to be bullied out of the opinion that 24/7 cameras are actually a good thing.
      - 1y ago
captainkrtek 1y ago
The feature in the app is also worded cleverly: “Search party lets you use your outdoor Ring cameras to help neighbors in your area” Note: doesn’t mention pets yet. Then: “Starting with lost pets, Search party will…” What comes after lost pets? Very open ended
- lazystar 1y ago
  > What comes after lost pets? Very open ended endangered animal conservation groups looking for rare birds
treyd 1y ago
I love how evil the concept of "opt-in-by-default" is. It's so rapey and sinister.
somehnguy 1y ago
Thanks for the heads up, just went in and disabled it on my 2 cameras. Next step will be to throw these privacy invading pieces of junk in the trash. Just need to find a comparable product. Are there any wireless (running power to these locations is not an option) doorbell cams that record to local storage instead of the cloud? I refuse to pay a subscription for these things. Ideally they would record to my server instead of onboard SD card so that the footage can't just walk away if someone grabs the camera.
- absoflutely 1y ago
  Reolink has some good options in this area. Both wired and wireless security and doorbell cameras with microSD storage by default, but FTP and SFTP can also be used. I've been happy with my (wired) doorbell camera with just a microSD card.

nerdponx 1y ago

Consider not sending your doorbell footage to accompany that has no respect for user privacy, and is now actively partnering with a police surveillance company.

cholantesh 1y ago
Yeah there are plenty of self-hosted solutions that work just as well.
- nik282000 1y ago
  And it's cheap! If you want JUST cameras it's pennies a day, I'm running a 2010 gaming PC with a dozen services (which would cost >200 bucks from the usual suspects) and it's still only 20 bucks a month.
- WarOnPrivacy 1y ago
  Blue Iris is a fairly amazing camera hosting solution. I am continually impressed with the quality of the code and feature set. (disclaimer: $80/yr but we actually pay a bit less).
lcnPylGDnU4H9OF 1y ago
> now actively partnering with a police surveillance company You can make this point stronger: Amazon is a police surveillance company (with Ring), just not primarily.

ta1243 1y ago

The best time to not buy into all this non-free surveilence-as-a-service crap was a decade ago. The second best time is today. Unfortunately the public love this stuff, and are quite happy to have CCTV pointing at your house. Privacy never existed 300 years ago, it doesn't today. Accept your feudal masters and make peace with it, because they won years ago.

comboy 1y ago

Just keep your cameras on separate vlan and access through eg. wireguard. Any company can have the best intentions but gov can just come to them, tell them to implement whatever is needed - even if that means lying to their users - and have access to everything. Probably even with plausible deniability for all parties involved, but not sure anyone even still cares about that.

andrepd 1y ago

Is this seriously your conclusion? Might be a good time to get rid of the fucking spy camera owned by a multitrillion dollar corporation partnering with the state surveillance apparatus, is my opinion. Have people never read/watched a sci-fi book/film before?

bryancoxwell 1y ago
I think encouraging people to enable E2EE is more realistic than asking everyone to throw out the Ring cams they’ve potentially spent hundreds on, yeah.
- andrepd 1y ago
  Why people would purchase a telescreen to place on their homes in the first place is also incomprehensible to me.
  - ta1243 1y ago
    I can see benefits to a closed circuit camera. I've never felt the need personally. If it's not running free software and treated in a secure fashion (camera can't talk to anything other than the server, enforced at the network level, etc) then it's not a risk per-se. However people would rather pay up front and pay subscriptions to get outside companies to run it than run their own their own equipment. In the 90s when I was excited about tech I didn't even consider that aspect.
- danparsonson 1y ago
  But... what makes you think that Amazon et al can't MITM the connection?
  - Aachen 1y ago
    From the linked document (in German for some reason, so I skimmed it as best I could), it sounds like the device will generate a password and you need to enter it on your phone. So symmetric encryption, not trusting the server to distribute keys that would be susceptible to MITM, and also not leaving users the options to choose bad passwords Sounds good from a security point of view, although it also says they disable functions like having more than one person able to view the camera (having a partner be able to answer the door seems pretty fundamental; they probably just can't be arsed to make such functionality work with safety turned on...) Of course, just like with Signal or anything else that gets regular updates, they can push an update to your device specifically that sends the decryption key out. You'll always have to trust them to not do something like that, but that's a whole different level from subpoenaing data they have on a hard drive

drdaeman 1y ago

Is Ring camera encryption actually independently audited and known to be implemented correctly and provide all the desirable security properties? Because when I reverse engineered my Tuya-based camera-equipped pet feeder, I've discovered that there was an encryption on the video stream, but they only encrypted I-frames and left P-frames unencrypted. Amazon is not Tuya, but IoT is IoT. My point is, there are myriad of ways IoT vendor can boast "encryption" and "security" on the marketing materials, while the actual implementation could be flawed beyond redemption.

croes 11mo ago

Does that prevent something like a Flock mode that sends the data directly to them?